Relatively recently, there has been a push to rethink how electric power is provided to consumers of such power. Conventionally, relatively large power plants burn fossil fuels to provide electric power to consumers. Typically, these power plants are controlled by private entities that bill consumers as a function of an amount of power utilized by the consumers over some time period. Of growing concern with respect to these types of power systems is the pollution that is generated by such systems, as well as the centralized nature of such systems. For example, if a natural disaster or other unexpected event occurred that caused a power system to be destroyed or temporarily go off-line, undesirable consequences may occur. For instance, millions of people may go months, or even years, without electric power if one of such conventional power systems is disabled.
In an attempt to reduce carbon emissions and other pollutants caused by these conventional power systems, distributed power systems that employ renewable energy to generate electric power have been manufactured and deployed. These types of power systems include, but are not limited to, wind turbine farms, hydro-turbines, solar panel fields, geothermal power systems, and the like. While these types of systems offer a promising alternative to the conventional power grid, there are numerous deficiencies corresponding to such systems. First, these types of systems generally output variable amounts of power over time, dependent upon time of day, weather conditions, etc., rendering it difficult to meet changing demands of consumers. Additionally, these types of systems tend to be less efficient than the conventional power systems that burn fossil fuels, and the cost of building such systems tends to be relatively high. Further, such systems remained centralized, in that if a natural disaster or other unexpected event causes one of such systems to be disabled, numerous consumers that are provided with power generated by such systems would be negatively impacted.
To overcome at least some of the deficiencies set forth above, microgrids have been theorized, wherein a microgrid comprises a plurality of independently owned electric power sources that are configured to provide electric power to consumers in an area that is local to the sources of the electric power. In an example, a neighborhood may comprise a plurality of houses, at least some of which have solar panels attached to their respective rooftops, and one or more of which has a micro-wind turbine attached thereto. Yet another home in the neighborhood may have a micro-gas turbine generator that can burn natural gas to generate electric power. Each of these power sources can be independently owned and operated by homeowners in the neighborhood. In the ideal case, these power sources can supply all of the power required by the electric power consumers in the neighborhood. Due to the fact that the power sources generate variable amounts of power over time, and that loads (homeowners in the neighborhood) consume variable amounts of power over time, complexities exist that heretofore have prevented microgids from becoming deployed on a wide scale.